Smithsonian Journeys Experts

Kimberly Dennis is Professor of Art History and Director of the Office of External Fellowships and Scholarships at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. She earned her PhD at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill focusing on the architectural and urban history of Rome during the Counter Reformation. Kim’s primary teaching areas are European Renaissance and Baroque art history, with an emphasis on women’s history. She offers seminars on topics ranging from Roman Palaces to the Dutch Golden Age. Kim has been recognized with Rollins’ highest teaching awards, and her work has been supported by the Mellon Foundation and the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation. Her research explores the art and architectural patronage of Roman noblewomen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. She is currently at work on two projects, Donna Olimpia: Papal Politics and the Patronage of Olimpia Maidalchini Pamphilj, and Ut Pictura Poesis: Ancestry and Lineage in Scenes of the Aeneid in Pietro da Cortona's Galleria in Palazzo Pamphilj (with Gretchen Meyers, PhD, Franklin & Marshall College).